Boxing Challenge: Munguia cuts down Johnson

Boxing never fails to show you something that you haven't seen before and the Golden Boy card on DAZN from their home base in Indio, California gave another new memory in the main event as Jaime Munguia stopped Tureano Johnson at the end of the sixth round.

Sounds pretty average, until you see the uppercut that Munguia landed on Johnson that tore a piece of his lip off and sent it flying outside the ring.

It literally left the ring and calling what Johnson was left with on his lip a cut is being very conservative as it took a chunk out of it.

While any loss is an unfortunate one, Johnson was just starting to gain some ground on Munguia before the ending of the fight and I would doubt that we would see a rematch.

I had Munguia slightly ahead (58-56) after six, but I think Johnson may have made the final half of the fight an interesting one.

Instead, I'll remember for that missing gouge out of Johnson's lip..

The co-feature saw a dazzling effort from slick boxing Rashidi Ellis in winning a unanimous decision over fellow unbeaten Alexis Rocha.

This was the fight that I was most looking forward to on this card, not for the action but for two talented fighters with a strong step to a higher level and I went back and forth on which fighter to select.

I chose the stronger Rocha over the faster Ellis and regretted it as Rocha was far too slow to deal with Ellis's quickness.

I had Ellis a 116-112 winner in the biggest win of his career and I'm willing to bet that few will want to face in a future eliminator.

Elwin Soto defended his WBO light flyweight title over Carlos Buitrago with a unanimous decision that seemed to be closer in my eyes than on the judges scorecards.

Soto won on one card 119-109 and 117-111 on another with the final card of 115-113 being the same as my card.

Ramon Malpica picked up six points to my three and continues his late season rally in cutting my lead to 140-135.

Boxing Challenge: Pacquiao dethrones Thurman

As I was away for the weekend, I haven't watched all of the Boxing Challenge fights, so I'll spend this time writing about what I have seen and will try to watch the others with an update soon.

In the main fight of the weekend (I have not seen the remainder of the card), Manny Pacquiao controlled the fight from the get-go when he scored a knockdown in round one and took Keith Thurman's WBA welterweight title by a split decision that was never that close.
Pacquiao's first-round knockdown didn't severely hurt Thurman, but what it did was establish that the naturally smaller Pacquiao had the type of power that Thurman, who had been hurt in fights by fighters that weren't huge punchers in the past, was going to have to respect and deal with.
I can't believe someone actually thought Thurman won this fight (Glenn Feldman scored a Thurman a 114-113 winner) as it was a competitive fight throughout, but one fighter clearly controlled the action.
I scored Pacquiao a 116-111 victor (8-4 and a knockdown) and for him, he could face the winner of September's IBF-WBC unification fight between Errol Spence and Shawn Porter early next year or perhaps that rematch with Floyd Mayweather (I hope not).

Also on Saturday, DAZN was on tap with a London card with Dillian Whyte against Oscar Rivas in a heavyweight eliminator. Haven't seen the Whyte victory yet, but I did see the other bout where heavyweight Dereck Chisora brutally knocked former title challenger Artur Splilka out in the second round.
Chisora isn't quite of title stock level, but he'll give anyone a tough scrap and when matched properly he advances from tough out to winning those exciting fights.

Friday night and ESPN+ was the provider for two IBF title eliminators that saw two promising young fighters move on for a title chance and left another fighting for his life.
In the main event, Teofimo Lopez earned a title fight with IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey with a unanimous decision win over Masayoshi Nakatani.
Lopez was forced to finish the scheduled distance for the first time in his career and seemed to lack the explosiveness that his career has seen thus far.
Watching the fight, the first thing that leaped out at me was the physical advantage that Nakatani had against Lopez.
At six feet tall and longer armed, Nakatani was able to keep Lopez on the outside and negated his power a bit, but even still, Lopez won the fight on my card going away at 118-110 and it shows how highly he is thought of as a prospect when you are a bit disappointed over a fight that a prospect won 10 of 12 rounds.
Going the distance is part of the maturation process for a prospect turning into a contender, but it always adds at least a little bit of thought of the possible flaws of the fighter.
The answers will begin to arrive in a fight against Commey for his IBF title, who could very well be undefeated as well, with both of his defeats coming via split decision.

The other eliminator saw Puerto Rico's Subriel Matias defeat Maxim Dadashev when Dadashev could not answer the bell for the final round when Dadashev's trainer Buddy McGirt stopped the fight.
Dadashev was well behind on the judge's scorecards ( and mine 107-102) and Matias was landing the harder punches throughout a grinding bout that saw both land plenty of hard punches.
It seemed senseless for Dadashev to continue considering that Matias had won the previous rounds and Dadashev had little chance of a final round stoppage, so the mercy ending made sense, but then Dadashev had to be helped from the ring, almost collapsed on his way to the locker room and was rushed to the hospital, where he would eventually undergo brain surgery.
Full wishes for a recovery to Dadashev, whos career is almost certainly over, but for Matias, he looks to be a very talented young fighter that will be an underdog to the winner of the Regis Prograis-Josh Taylor unification fight (Taylor is the current IBF champion), but brings the type of talent that won't be simply a walkover for either champion.

Thursday's offering was brought to you from Golden Boy on RingTV.com and some regional sports networks and GBP might have wished they did not offer that in hindsight as their middleweight prospect from Ireland, Jason Quigley was unable to keep veteran Tureano Johnson off of him and was overwhelmed by the former title challenger's aggressiveness with the result being Quigley's corner stopping the fight after the ninth round.
Johnson entered the fight with questions after a physical shellacking against Sergey Dereyvanchenko and a listless draw versus 26-13 Fernando Castaneda, but he was his old buzzsaw self against Quigley and re-established himself as at least a top 10-15 contender in the division.
As for Quigley, this pounding now raises questions about his future and should he have one, he'll need a few softballs to rebuild any confidence that he has remaining after this fight.

In the boxing challenge for the week (Including the fights I'll write about later time permitting), I outscored Ramon Malpica 12-9.

My points: Two each from: Manny Pacquiao, Dillian Whyte, Yordanis Ugas, Luis Nery, Caleb Plant,
                   One                 : Teofimo Lopez, Dereck Chisora

Ramon's:    Two each from: Caleb Plant, Luis Nery, Subriel Matias.
                   One                 : Dillian Whyte, Teofimo Lopez

The standings are currently in my favor at: 191-170

Boxing Challenge:Derevychenko runs through Johnson

In what I thought would be an action fight and proved to be so,Sergiy Derevyanchenko wore down an extremely game Tureano Johnson and stopped him seconds into the final round in a middleweight clash in Miami,Oklahoma.

Derevyanchenko was unable to knock down Johnson until the finish of the fight,but he repeatedly pounded Johnson throughout the fight and despite some bright spots from Johnson,won most of the rounds.
Give plenty of credit to Johnson,who never stopped trying and landed his share of big punches,he was simply facing a fighter that fought his fight,but was simply stronger and more powerful.
Aside from being a fun fight to watch as expected,the bigger news was Derevyanchenko earning the mandatory contender slot in the IBF for the winner of the Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez fight in September.

For as good of a fighter Derevyanchenko could eventually be,he still is just 11-0,has just one win over a top 20 contender (this one over Johnson) and he couldn't have asked for a better style for his first top opponent to have.
I think Derevyanchenko still needs some seasoning and since he now holds a mandatory contender slot,it's unlikely to happen as it's more likely that his management team will either wait for the title shot or fight soft touches to stay active,yet not endanger the title shot down the road.

Derevyanchenko might create a better fight for Golovkin or Alvarez than some of the contenders that they have faced,but his lack of preparation will likely teach him and his management team what happens when you face top competition without the proper amount of experience.

I earned two points in the boxing challenge to Ramon Malpica's one to boost my lead to 104-95.